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Friday, 20 April 2018

ALBUM REVIEW: The Crown, "Cobra Speed Venom"

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type:
Full Length

Date Released:
16/03/2018

Label:
Metal Blade Records

After
years of struggling to compete with their own legacy, The Crown are sounding
inspired and in excellent form again on ‘Cobra Speed Venom’. The
barely-contained frenetic energy of the band’s best work are here, and the
riffs are, on the whole, more engaging than anything the band has come up with
in the last 15 years.

‘Cobra Speed Venom’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Destroyed By Madness

2. Iron Crown

3. In the Name of Death

4. We Avenge!

5. Cobra Speed Venom

6. World War Machine

7. Necrohammer

8. Rise In Blood

9. Where My Grave Shall Stand

10. The Sign of the Scythe

11. Nemesis Diamond (bonus track)

12. The Great Dying (bonus track)

The Review:

The path that has led The Crown to their new album ‘Cobra Speed Venom’ hasn’t been an easy one. After disbanding in
2004 following touring difficulties and frustrations following the previous
year’s ‘Possessed 13’, the band’s
members found themselves in an uphill battle to come up with an engaging sound
in the years that followed. Several new bands, a renaming, and then return
albums in 2010 and 2015 saw success to varying degrees, but nothing that quite
captured the magic of the band at its peak. ‘Doomsday
King’ and ‘Death Is Not Dead’
were solid albums in and of themselves, but they understandably fell short of
the tremendous standards set by the albums the band released from 1998 to 2002.

After years of struggling to compete
with their own legacy, The Crown are sounding
inspired and in excellent form again on ‘Cobra
Speed Venom’. The barely-contained frenetic energy of the band’s best work
are here, and the riffs are, on the whole, more engaging than anything the band
has come up with in the last 15 years.

The album’s first single, “Iron Crown”, is the kind of quintessential
stormer that was the band’s hallmark during their best years. The death metal
on tap here has a lot of the same speed metal sensibility that fueled albums
like ‘Hell is Here’ or ‘Crowned In Terror’. That sensibility is
even more pronounced on “In The Name of
Death”, and it’s a great joy to hear The Crown using that
aspect of their sound so well after so many years. And that’s not even
mentioning the tremendous guitar solo work as well. Those fiery solos have
always been a part of what made The Crown so great, but
it’s all the more meaningful when they’re the icing on the cake for songs that
are this good.

New drummer Henrik Axelsson fits in
remarkably well, considering how deeply rooted Janne Saarenpää’s style had been
to The Crown’s musical identity. It essentially
makes for a seamless transition, which felt like an impossibility from the
outside looking in, back when Saarenpää announced his departure from the band
back in 2014.

‘Cobra
Speed Venom’ isn’t a perfect return to form, as
some of the album’s slower moments still tend to be missing something, but the
bulk of the album sees the band firing on all cylinders. It makes for a
satisfying redemption story for a band that has struggled to regain their
footing. At their best, there’s nothing quite like The Crown.
They have a unique musical personality, and it’s wonderful to see that finally
shining through again. ‘Cobra Speed
Venom’ is an album that would have made me happy as a follow up to ‘Crowned in Terror’ nearly 15 years ago.
It makes me even happier now.

Band Submissions

To those bands who have recently issued their first demo or album via bandcamp and would like to be featured on our 666 Pack Review or considered for a full review or stream please contact Aaron via email including your EPK, band bio, album file or download code, including artwork.

To those bands issuing their sophomore record and so on and would like to be considered for a review or stream on the blog. Get in touch using the same address above

We will consider bands from any genre but exclusively stoner, sludge, doom, psych, post-metal, experimental, black-metal etc. (Whilst I would like to respond to every email, this is not always possible.) Thanks